Friday, May 4, 2018

CD Review:Germ Class "Bitter Values" (Dub Ditch Picnic)

Typically when reviewing music the best place to start is the beginning. What are your first impressions? What happens when you first press play? That sort of thing. But with this CD from Germ Class, I think I shall instead take it from the end. There is this interesting line at the end of this album that says "Unique is not so unique". It reminds me of how we're conditioned to think that we are all so different and we're all so special but if we're all different then aren't we all really the same?

As an example based on music, let's say you have a particular piece of music or even an artist who just seems to defy genre. Eventually, don't you believe you're going to have more than one such situation? Won't you even potentially reach a point where group all of these artists into some kind of genre-less tag on Bandcamp? Doesn't that take away from their unique attributes on some level?

There are many ways to describe the music of Germ Class but I bet few people who talk about it will actually describe it as Germ Class. Wouldn't it be so refreshing if we could just say "Germ Class? They sound like Germ Class" and do that for all the great artists making music? Of course, I can't because I'm trying to tell you as someone writing a review and saying that isn't really helpful when you are making your decision as to whether or not to buy this CD, in theory.

Electronics and spoken word, trippy and Phil Collins drums are some of the things which can be heard on "Bitter Values". Somewhere between SPC ECO and Garbage there is a definite Breakfast Club feel to this as well, which just takes me back to when I first started Raised by Gypsies and got into shoegaze. Throughout the album it has this chill vibe overall. The tenth track can feel like a western and fifteen can sound like something out of a Tarantino movie but the two are unrelated.

One of the big take aways from this CD is that it seems to be music over vocals as well. I think the idea of saying something is instrumental (without vocals) or not needs to change. I've discussed before the ideas of having music which can be labeled by the percentage of vocals. Less vocals could be a 60% or 75% type of artist. But who has time to do the math? Music is made up of a lot of math though, at its core, but I just see it as wonderous, especially with artists like Germ Class.